The 15 Most Wholesome Student-Teacher Relationships In Anime, Ranked

On the outside, Assassination Classroom is about a bunch of kids trying to eliminate a tentacle monster with a smiley face head before he can destroy the Earth. But once you get into the meat of the story, it's clear that its most important theme is how a teacher can change their students' lives.

Class 3-E is the lowest performing class in Kunugigaoka Middle School, an elite school that treats students very differently depending on their scores. Because little is expected of them, none of them are meeting their potential. Koro-sensei, the tentacle monster, uses assassination as a pretext for helping each student believe in themselves and expand their skills. For many of these kids, he's the first and only adult who sees them for who they really are. 

Naruto is filled with wholesome teacher-student relationships, so it's hard to choose just one. Might Guy and Rock Lee are a standout duo though, so this time around we'll focus on them. 

Rock Lee can't mold chakra, which means that he can't use most of the techniques his fellow shinobi use. However, he can use taijutsu, which largely focuses on physical strength and martial arts. Taijutsu is Might Guy's specialty, so he decided to train Lee. 

Not only did Guy help Lee become the best version of himself, the two also have a ton of fun together. They're often seen posing in identical jumpsuits, screaming joyfully, and overall enjoying each other's company. It's cringey, but it's also adorable.

To Izuku Midoriya, All Might is the coolest hero in existence. His main goal in life is to be exactly like him, but there's one problem - he doesn't have a quirk, or superpower, so he can't become a professional hero. 

But a chance encounter with All Might changes all that. All Might's quirk is transferable, and he's looking for an heir to take it on. He chooses Izuku, and helps him not only train his body enough to be able to accept his quirk, but to get into U.A., a high school for would-be superheroes. Once Izuku gets in, All Might is one of his teachers. From there, their relationship gets more complex. As Izuku gets stronger, he learns more about the quirk that binds them - and about All Might as an individual human being with frailties and faults. 

Despite gaining a more nuanced picture of his idol, he still thinks he's the coolest hero in existence - even when he can't be a hero anymore.

After Yuji swallows Sukuna's finger, pretty much every higher-up in the Sorcerer world wants him annihilated. Gojo doesn't want to see an innocent kid go down for no reason, and he also thinks it'd be a huge waste not to train someone with so much potential as a sorcerer himself. So he tells the higher-ups to buzz off and starts training Yuji using his own unconventional methods. 

Despite the direness of the situation, the two of them still manage to have fun together. Even Yuji revealing that he wasn't actually executed is turned into a fun joke - though nobody else other than Gojo and Yuji really appreciated it.

If your dad is an emotionally inept Super Saiyan who spends most of his time in the afterlife, you're going to need somebody else to step in. 

At first, Piccolo wouldn't have been a contender - he hated Goku and tried hard to destroy him. But after he and Goku established an alliance, he decided to step in and help Goku's young son Gohan train. At first, he just wanted to make sure that the kid could stand up to the Saiyans who would soon be invading, but it wasn't long before the two grew attached. 

Over time, Piccolo became the person Gohan respected and relied on the most, while Gohan became almost like a son to Piccolo. When Gohan grows up and becomes less enamored with fighting, Piccolo is the one person who can motivate him to do what needs to be done. 

Alphonse and Edward Elric are a little nervous around Izumi Curtis, and justifiably so - she won't hesitate to put them through the wringer during alchemy training. But the reason she's so hard on them is because she knows how devastating the costs of making a mistake can be - and so do they. 

When Al and Ed were younger, their mother passed away. They used alchemy to try to bring her back. Not only did they fail, but Ed lost two limbs and Al lost his whole body as a result. Izumi did something similar. She tried to revive her stillborn baby, but ended up destroying some of her organs instead. So Izumi and the boys relate strongly to one another's struggles, and while they can't replace each other's loved ones, they still have a mother-son relationship alongside their teacher-student one.